Little Johnny Jet

There are a few bright spots here but to anthropomorphize some airplanes is pretty easy pickings. The plot involves a WWII bomber who uses propellers and is now termed obsolete. When he has a son, it is a speedy jet. This is what is putting dad on the scrap heap, until a race comes along.

John is an obsolete B-29. He's a war hero but everybody just want a jet. His wife Mary gets pregnant. When the baby comes, he's also a jet. John enters an Air Force competition but he falls behind early to the jets.

This is another good one from the legendary Tex Avery. It's very similar to the cab story. Maybe Pixar got a bit of inspiration from these old cartoons.

A retired air force plane can't get a job to support his expanding family, because everyone wants jets these days. When his child is born and proves to be a jet.

Like Avery's earlier ONE CAB'S FAMILY, it uses the basic premise as a framework to string a lot of gags on. Fortunately, he has his best writer, Heck Allen, to work with.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best he ever did. 'Little Johnny Jet' is not one of his best, animation limitations show in some of the backgrounds and it lacks the imagination and hilarity of his best work. It is nonetheless a very nicely done cartoon with a good deal to like, managing to make a story about an aeroplane family entertaining, endearing and full of human emotion which can't have been an easy thing to do but was achieved.

'Little Johnny Jet' for much of the length is very amusing, and perhaps funnier than 'One Cab's Family', and then without feeling disjointed has a more dramatic second half that has excitement and pathos.

The characters are very engaging and easy to like and the voice work is wonderful from Daws Butler.

Expectedly, Avery fares very strongly in the directing, even if other cartoons show off his unique wild and wacky style more.

Some limited backgrounds aside, the animation is colourful and expressive. The music is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed, a lot of the action is even enhanced by the music.

In summation, very nicely done but Avery is not at his best. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This cartoon was nominated for an Oscar, which is welcome although a bit puzzling, as this is a prototypical Tex Avery cartoon-take something ordinary, twist it in some odd or extraordinary way and fire sight gags at the audience for the bulk of the cartoon. Avery often gave inanimate objects human traits, as he does here and this is a marvelous cartoon, but he did at least a dozen that were as good or better that weren't nominated. Which proves that the Academy Awards process is as much chance as anything else. This shows on Cartoon Network often. Recommended